Road grading material, such as road cinders, is deposited along the shoulder area of roads and highways to provide a stable surface upon which vehicles can stop out of traffic, to provide a boundary zone between a road surface and roadside vegetation, and to provide a drainage area for water. By one method, grading material is incrementally deposited on a road and its shoulder area from the tilted bed of a dumptruck, and is then spread over the road shoulder area by at least one conventional road grader, for example, a Galion model A-550, or a Caterpillar model 12G, following the dumptruck.
The disadvantage of such a method, however, is that conventional road graders are large and expensive, and are designed for grading wide expanses of road area. Because of their size and large turning radii, conventional road graders are not maneuverable and are not ideally suited for road shoulder work. Should a particular section of a road shoulder area require special attention and therefore extra grading, a conventional road grader would be required to perform the extra grading by completing a series of passes over the area, each of which would require clumsy repositioning of the grader.
By another method, road shoulder grading can be accomplished by use of a shoulder paving machine, called the Widener Attachment, manufactured by Midland Machinery Company of Tonawanda, New York. The machine can be mounted to a front-end loader, a conventional road grader, or a chipspreader, and contains a conveyor system and a road shoulder spreader. To perform the grading, the machine, mounted on the front-end loader, road grader or chipspreader, travels in contact with a dump truck which distributes from its tilted bed the grading material to the conveyor system of the shoulder paving machine. The conveyor system transfers the grading material to the road shoulder area whereupon the spreader grades it evenly over the road shoulder area.
Disadvantages of the Midland shoulder paving machine, however, are that the machine is complicated and expensive, and is even less maneuverable than a conventional road grader. The Midland shoulder paving machine, therefore, cannot rework road shoulder areas requiring extra grading. Furthermore, the Midland machine is attached to the front-end loader, road grader or chipspreader in such a way that normal use of the loader, grader or chipspreader is prevented. For example, if the Midland shoulder paving machine is used with a front-end loader, the bucket of the loader must be removed and the Midland machine must be attached to the lift arms of the loader. Therefore, while the Midland machine is attached to a loader, the loader, cannot be used to lift, transport or dump anything.